The Age editor in chief Andrew Holden quits

Editor in chief of The Age Andrew Holden is set to leave the Fairfax Media newspaper, with deputy editor Mark Forbes stepping in as interim editor.

Holden’s departure precedes a broader editorial management shake-up across Fairfax’s stable of newspapers, including The Sunday Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun Herald, with the company beginning consultation on the changes today.

Holden has been at the helm of the Melbourne paper since 2012. He is understood to be leaving the newspaper next week.

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Sean Aylmer, Fairfax Media editorial director, said in a statement: “After discussions with Andrew Holden, he has decided to leave the company after 13 years, the last eight as a daily editor, with three and a half years as Editor in Chief of The Age.

“Andrew has successfully led The Age through a period of great transition and we thank him for the contribution he has made and wish him well for the future. Mark Forbes will be acting editor in chief of The Age.”

Holden said in a statement: “It’s an enormous privilege to be editor in chief of The Age and I have thoroughly enjoyed that experience. It is an outstanding newsroom and perfectly placed to thrive in the new media environment. After eight years of leading newsrooms through many challenges, I’m looking forward to new opportunities.”

It is rumoured Fairfax will expand Sydney Morning Herald editor in chief Darren Goodsir’s remit to include The Age.

Fairfax has today begun consultations on the introduction of a new metro editorial structure for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Aylmer said in a statement: “We will be consulting across the newsroom extensively over the next 10 days and looking for feedback before finalising the model.

“The proposed structure enhances the delivery of our quality journalism across the country with depth in our key news topics, including federal politics, state politics and policy, sport, entertainment, investigations and justice.

“It will simplify newsroom workflows and allows reporters and editors more autonomy to better manage their workloads and create content that meets the 24/7 demands of our audiences.

“Our new structure is similar to the recently announced newsroom structures of the Wall Street Journal and Daily Telegraph of London and other newsrooms around the world.

“The new structure will deliver greater focus on content creation and distribution roles – with our editorial people focused on the creation of content and our distribution people focused on the dissemination of our content. We believe this will strengthen our audience-first approach.

“The reporters and editors in the newsrooms will remain focused on great stories, videos, graphics, photos and multimedia. The distribution arm of the newsroom will get that content to the biggest and best possible audience via all channels available, digitally and in print.

“To support the new structure, a number of new roles will be created, and some roles altered.”

Fairfax has since announced the new editorial roles as part of the restructure, denying rumours The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald would be run by one editor-in-chief.

The restructure will see both mastheads have an editor in chief and an editor.

The head of digital channels will work across both mastheads and be responsible for the distribution of content through all digital channels including desktop, mobile, tablet and third parties. Similarly the head of print channels will operate across both mastheads.

The restructure sees the role of topic editor expanded, with topic editors responsible for the creation of content within their topics which will be used to drive audience growth. For national topics, topic editors will work across all newsrooms.

Oh dear. I’ve been trying to count how many editorial shake-ups/restructures Fairfax has had over the past four or five years, but I’ve run out of fingers and toes. Very hard o the staff unfortunately.

So many restructures and each time, we’re told it will enhance the journalism, drive greater efficiencies,allow more focus on content etc etc etc. They’re rapidly restructuring themselves out of existance….

Good luck Andrew. Most ex Fairfax staff seem to go onto bigger and better things as you will too no doubt. Besides Hywood and his clique who must surely now be setting records for low staff morale and turnover for those that are left. Surely it’s time for a good look in the mirror. Desperately in need of fresh faces at the top to inject some life and real ideas for the future. Editing The Age out of Sydney will be popular in Melbourne.

The restructure will do little to halt the slide of Fairfax Media. It is said that desperate times call for desperate measures but these and other measures being undertaken across the Fairfax Media business are not so much desperate as they are plain stupid.

It does seem like The Age has been struggling recently. This contrasts with the SMH which has been powering along — most-read news publication in the country, performing strongly in digital and subs, and not doing too terribly in print (taking into account the across-the-board print declines). The Age hasn’t kept up. I was wondering when they’d, understandably, start getting restless about it.

Newspapers are good at cutting costs and getting rid of good staff, but not very good at delivering newspapers people want to read. It would be better if those running newspapers looked back at what was being produced in the 1980s when circulations were good and before cost cuts started to destroy the product. No newspaper has a future if it continually cuts costs while reduceing quality.

There were at least two women at The Age that should have had been put in the editorial leadership gig ages ago. Both have left. The sad fact is that it’s been in decline for decades, living off the memory of its strong performance in the early 1980s. But if the consultants who tell HYwood what to do are now merging the editorial leaders of The Age and SMH then it’s dead. Sadly, it looks very much as though Hywood just wants to push traffic to the real estate ads and nothing more. Note that even the Guardian no longer beliieves in traffic driven news ,media models.

Whom/whatever takes over, can we just have news? Not bias? I know the Tele is nutcase rightwing, so SMH believes it should offer an alternative… buy why so uber ABC? If they just flogged the news, and were serious about being independent, then I’d support their digital efforts. Start being responsible with what used to be the cornerstone of news.

I can guarantee you many want Hywood and Hambly out. The small clique who run Fairfax now are incompetent. They only have one strong business left. Need fresh faces to take the business to the new level

Bob Watson: you answer your own question.
And I see that Fairfax has outlined a structure that is more complex than a Chinese politburo career guide. Typical of the thinking that permeates the Fairfax leadership clique.

Memo to Fairfax: here in Melbourne, we don’t need you. Once, the notion of Melbourne without The Age newspaper would have been dismissed as ludicrous. But over the past few years, the out-of-state Fairfax management has rapidly throttled The Age. Whereas the Sydney Morning Herald is afforded flagship status, The Age is barely listed on Google News. The Age website is crammed with cricket stories from Andrew Webster and other SMH writers, and the social notes are bizarrely headed by Private Sydney. If it wasn’t for Aussie Rules,which demands local coverage, and the commercial realities of intercity rivalry, Fairfax would long ago have dumped The Age, and marketed the SMH in a national vein, like the New York Times. That day may come – but Melbourne has already outgrown The Age. News and comment is sourced from millions of sources, not just a few, and the city’s multifaceted culture is bubbling. Fairfax is inexorably killing The Age. That’s their sorry business, but the sad truth for Fairfax is that here in Melbourne, we don’t need you.